Combine the demands of work and the fever-pitch of the holiday season
and you obtain evaporating days. Left work late, but last night’s
commute home presented one of those rare-but-wonderful moments of
cycling nirvana - the uphill car pass.

Rolling homeward, the intersection traffic had increased to
near-gridlock, and auto drivers were jutting forward in 6 to 8 inch
increments with that “dammit! I am not letting THEM in!” attitude of
the chronically delayed. ‘Tis the season. I could see that the
freeway was worse off, probably the result of an accident or stall.
That generally puts the hoi-polloi into “Exit & Surface Street”
mode, hence the extra traffic and ebbing forward momentum.

Of course, a bicycle commuter remains immune to this.

In the final miles of my commute, the road begins to incline. Although
a few cars and trucks revved past me on the flattish approach, I could
already see the brakelights before me. As I slid slightly back on the
Brooks saddle to torque the fixed gear, I began to pass them.

With 15 watts of NiteRider HID and a pulsing Cateye LED as my shield, I
continued upward. Cars skimmed by as though they had stopped,
which in fact, they had. The next mile or so went by in a breeze,
buzzing past the idlers. They would move occasionally, but never with
enough speed to match mine.